


but we can try

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:12:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3448424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them can be Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but we can try

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingvoices/gifts).



> This is set in an AU of Agent Carter ep 5, where the Commandos rescued Bucky from Russia. Reading [this](http://radialarch.tumblr.com/post/110115012326) first might help a bit.
> 
> For Sara, who said "YES PLEASE" when I said "Bucky and Peggy roleplaying Steve/Peggy, y/n."

In the end, Carter kicks the door in.

“James?” The click of heels against the floor. “Will you please talk—oh, bloody hell.”

Bucky takes a gulp of his whiskey. “Watch the glass,” he says. Pointless. She’s smart enough to notice. Steve picked a smart girl. Steve picked a—

Another drink, perhaps. It burns going down, but he’s got used to it some hours ago.

Carter’s picked her way through the mess. She’s sitting down next to him. Christ. She’ll want him to talk. He’s never felt less like talking.

He passes over the bottle. Wipes the top of it with his sleeve, as an afterthought.

Carter looks down at the bottle, and then lobs it at the far wall.

“Carter!”

“Really, James,” she tells him. “How you’re not already dead I’ve no idea.”

“ _Fuck_ you.” He feels angry all at once, hot and prickly. “If I want to kill myself I damn well will, and you can all go to hell.” His vision is blurred. His voice cracks.

“Finished?” Carter says lightly. “Been practising that for a while?”

A laugh finds its way out of his throat. He fumbles for another bottle.

There’s a hand on his wrist. “I think you’ve had enough,” Carter says. She says it kindly.

“I—” Bucky’s throat closes up. It’s not enough. It won’t be enough. There’s something wrong with him. He heals too fast. He can’t get drunk.

He can’t say it. He gives her the bottle instead.

“Thank you,” she says. She takes a gulp of the whiskey without wincing. And then: “Will you tell me about him?”

Will he tell her about him. Can he tell her about him? The Russians took a lot from him. Some days he wakes up and doesn’t remember his own name. Some days he doesn’t know what he’s mourning.

“You know first time Steve an’ I met, we got into a fight?” God, he hasn’t thought about this in a long time. “Must’ve been eight, nine. Tiny little kid and something I said set him off, he punched me right there in the street.

“He was so angry. I got up and looked at him and you know what he said? ‘Fight back.’ Like it was gonna kill him if I didn’t punch him.”

“So I did.” Bucky lets out a breath. “Then I picked him back up and introduced myself.”

There had been angry tears at the corner of Steve’s eyes, Bucky remembers. He’d wiped them off with the back of his hand and his mouth had been sullen as he said, “Steve Rogers.”

There’s something scratchy in his throat. He swallows once, twice, and lifts his head to stare at Carter.

Carter’s got her hand wrapped tight around the bottle and her mouth is small and sad in a smile. “Yes,” she says. “That’s Steve all over.”

He feels precariously balanced, fragile. Like one wrong word could break him.

“It was supposed to be me,” he says. “I was the one who should have — not Steve, not —”

“For heaven’s sake,” Carter says. “It _was_ you. And it nearly killed him.”

Bucky barks out a laugh at that. “We keep getting this wrong, don’t we,” he says. “Never alive in the right place.”

Carter suddenly, fiercely, presses one hand to his knee. “Don’t apologize for being alive.”

Bucky is unbending, folding open. He lets Carter lean into him. The warmth of her body bleeds through his shirt.

“When you rescued me.” The words are tangled in his mouth. He separates them carefully. “I thought I just wanted to come home.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Carter says, “I’m very glad you’re home.”

She’s leaning in further now, nearly in his lap. Her mouth moves against his jaw as she talks. He could do it. He could turn his head and kiss her.

She moves first. She frowns, thoughtful, as she puts her hand to his jaw and presses her lips to his mouth.

He pulls back gently. “I’m not Steve,” he tells her. It’s useless. No one else could be Steve. “I’m not what you’re looking for.”

“Neither am I.” She strokes her thumb across his forehead. “But we can try.”

It’s easier, when she kisses him the second time. He kisses her as Steve might have kissed her: soft, slow. She bites at his lip and pulls him up, and he follows.

They’re standing now, close. They could be dancing.

He presses her against the wall. “Peggy,” he whispers. The name fits oddly in his mouth. “Would you — do you want —”

“Captain,” Carter says, very tart. “Today, if you please.”

He slides his hand up Carter’s thigh, hiking up her dress. Beyond the seam of her stockings, the skin of her thigh is soft. Smooth. He pulls at her panties and she lifts up one leg out of them, letting them slide down the other.

She’s unbuckling his belt. He hears the click of the buckle, feels the warmth of her hands on the skin of his belly. Her hands on his cock.

She has to stroke him to hardness. Neither of them have a condom. Steve’s first time never would have been like this. Nevertheless, when Carter whispers, “Come on, darling, I want you in me,” a jolt of heat goes through him.

“Peggy,” he says against her skin, “oh, God, Pegs —”

She has him in hand, is guiding him inside her. It’s shockingly hot — he has to catch his breath, rest his forehead against hers.

“That’s it,” she murmurs, “you’re doing so well,” and she brings a hand up to stroke at his jaw. He turns his head to mouth at her hand and tastes himself on her fingers.

He has his left hand underneath Carter’s thigh, his right braced against the wall. She moves against him, like a wave; all he can do is follow.

When she comes she says, “Oh, Steve,” breathless into the metal of his shoulder. He pulls out, spills over her thighs — bites his lip and keeps silent.

Afterwards, the words come out of Bucky’s mouth while Carter’s cleaning up. “You don’t want to do this again, do you.”

She looks at him, unruffled. “No,” she agrees. Then her face softens. “But thank you.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I thought so.”

Carter’s standing by the door now. “Good-bye, James,” she says. “Do try to keep yourself presentable.”

The door slams shut. Bucky looks around the apartment. He scrubs his face with his hands and begins to sweep up the glass.


End file.
